Artesia, White Sands and Las Cruces

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Headed off toward Las Cruces.  Decided to take the scenic route (longer) and first stop was Artesia.  This was not a planned stop and it turned out to be a longer stop than anticipated.  We stopped because there were some amazing bronze statues of a woman pioneer and 2 men who began oil searches in this area and a oil rig with bronze workers on it to show how they had been successful and how the town came to be.  Quite interesting and wonderful artist.

  As we were walking Jodi saw an interesting shop with some beautiful rugs and Jack saw a barber shop.  In desperate need of a haircut, he gave me the keys and I headed into the shop.  I found an interesting rug for our new bathroom.  The lady in the store was helping another customer, so I headed to the car to phone the people in Las Cruces that we will be staying with tonight and then headed to buy the rug.  As I was going Jack met me and asked for the keys.  I didn’t have the keys!  I locked them in the car right on the consul between the seats.  Good move, genius.  Oh, where is the spare key, somewhere in Arkansas!  A man walked by right away and Jack asked him if he knew of any locksmiths.  The guy did and offered to take him there!  I love small town people, so kind.  I stayed and called AAA and between Jack and I, and a round about way with AAA, a locksmith got the keys out, and AAA picked up the bill.  Jack had another key made that would open the car, but not drive it.  Let’s see if I can hold on to this one.  We headed out across desert and then started climbing up into the mountains.  It was beautiful with fall colors starting.  Lots of yellow, not much red.  Stopped in Cloudcroft where there is a famous lodge and wandered around inside and out.

  It was up on a hill and from there, we could look down on White Sands National Monument.  Took off through Alamagordo and into White Sands.  It looks just like it sounds.  There are about 300 acres in the National Monument of white gypsum sand dunes.  Parts of the dunes,  closer to the visitor center have lots of plants but as you drive into the park, the dunes become taller and barer.  They are hauntingly beautiful.  We took a couple of walks.  The sand is cool and feels really good on bare feet.  Apparently the rocks in the mountain ranges surrounding White Sands have gypsum in the stone.  When the rains come, it washes away some of the gypsum and carries it downstream to a lake on the western side of White Sands (no public access to).  When the lake dries up the gypsum is formed in soft crystals and then when the winds of spring come, they blow the gypsum pieces toward the dunes.  The dunes are in motion, but of course, you cannot see that.  The area holds the sands due to a very high water table.  It is an interesting place to study evolution as has only been there a couple thousand years and the animals in the region have adapted to their environment by becoming very pale white, tan or silver.  Beautiful place and got another stamp in the National Park passport.

Arrived in Las Cruces and headed to Jim and Nina’s.  Oh my, what a beautiful home they have, a 5 year old adobe.  Jodi’s klutzy day continued with me proceeding to spill out a bag in the car with the lid of the liquid Biz container somehow working it’s way off onto their clean garage floor.  How embarrassing! Nina is a collector of Indian art, baskets,and bowls as well as rocks, and many beautiful interesting things.  She loves to shop.  Their house is truly a museum and kitchen, bathrooms magnificent.  We went out for dinner in La Mesilla, the old part of Las Cruces and went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant.  I for the first time ever, ate off the senior menu.  I am not sure how I feel about that.  We went back to their home and watched Waterhorse.  A delightful movie about the Loch Ness monster.  Nina used to work in a zoo in Milwaukee as a zookeeper and Jim had various jobs, at one time in the family business which was catering.  He loves to hike but is finding it increasingly difficult due to arthritis in his feet.  It is sad to not be able to do what you love to do.